We're only broken again
by jennygiraffadil
Summary: She's trying to move on. He's trying to not let go. When the last thing he has to remember him by gets broken, what is there to do but let himself break with it.


**Title:** We're only broken again  
**Pairing:** Remus/Sirius; implied Tonks/Remus  
**Disclaimer:** I wish.  
**Summary:** She's trying to move on. He's trying to not let go. When the last thing he has to remember him by gets broken, what is there to do but let himself break with it.

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Remus had spent the last three nights sleeping on the couch. Tonks didn't seem to mind, but she didn't know the reason why. On the surface, they seemed happy; it was just an argument. Just another argument. They'd had so little time together before the wedding threw them all into disarray it was perfectly natural for them to need time to grow into a pattern. To grow comfortable with it. And so when Tonks had sobbed quietly over wishing her cousin could have been there Remus's body turned rigid and he bit down hard on a tight lip and didn't say a word.

Three months later when she started clearing out their bedroom and had a pile stacked high on the bed of old memorabilia, his neck stiffened and he stared at Sirius's grin from a photograph that was sinking into the heavy carpet. She looked up at him, a bandana curled around pink spikes and half an earring hanging from her lobe, and he didn't say anything then either. But they didn't hug anymore after that. And he didn't kiss her, even on the cheek, for at least a week.

When he found Sirius's old bomber jacket in a thick binbag to give to charity, he couldn't have said anything even if he'd wanted to. Tonks had her fingers twisted around the top as he balanced casually on the balls of his feet with his hands wrapped tight behind his back.

"You're not sixteen anymore," she laughed and he almost smiled at how much she didn't know. But he could never do that. Especially not to her.

He worked late every night for the next month to avoid seeing her.

Then he found Sirius's motorbike in pieces and didn't return at all for three days. He said it was the full moon and she hugged him so tightly his chest ached and her breath burnt the back of his throat. His hands pressed down her spine tentatively remembering hard muscles and broad scars. Her lips tore into a wavering smile and he couldn't sleep next to her without seeing dark hair spread over a white pillow and hearing that laugh in every corner of the room.

She thought she'd done something wrong so he played along because it was easier. 

A week later she knocked his watch off the counter and he broke down.

Springs and cogs rolled along the worn linoleum, catching shadows in the upturned corner where it had all really began. A searing pain started behind his eyes and his stomach burrowed in on itself, tying words together in a scrambled knot just beneath his tongue and he didn't know what to do.

"Remus? Are you okay?" she whispered carefully, her fingers twisting against shaking knees as she tried to frantically gather up all the pieces.

"Remus?" she asked again as she sunk to the floor and he turned to face her, "Remus! Answer me!". The shadows under his eyes suddenly loomed like giants and if the light caught him just right they glared like perfect half-moon bruises. And her heart stilled, and raced, and did everything it wasn't supposed to.

But he stood rooted to the spot, his hands balling into the pockets of his jacket and his breathing was nothing more than harsh, barely controlled, gasps. And it was like the boy underneath was trying to battle the man on the outside and the only thing to show for it were these tiny little fractures sitting all over the floor.

"Don't say anything," he hissed, and she bit back the stinging cheeks and cold air, "I don't want to do this. Don't make me, Tonks. Please."

And she just watched him. Watched the trainwreck. The heartache. The headache. With her hands laid open in front of her, trying to catch the words that would fix this, the pieces she could put back together.

"Then don't," she cried, pausing and resting her head back against the cupboard, "I don't know what's wrong with you, Remus. Wha's wrong with us. And it's tearing us apart. What is it? What do you want from me? Am I not good enough?"

"_You're not him_," he spat out before he could stop himself and even the thick bile rising in his throat, clouding his lungs and cutting off every other thought in head couldn't stop them from spilling out, over and over again, "You're not, Tonks. I'm sorry, but you're not. We were doing I so well. I was doing so well. But you broke it. _You broke it._"

His eyes wavered to the battered tiles and the silver specks dotted here and there. He fell to his knees and a rough growl burst from his throat, "It's all I had left of him and you broke it. How do you fix that, Tonks? How do you fix that?"

She didn't like crying and she didn't want to admit to it at the best of times but she clung to the fierce heat streaming down her cheeks. To the damp fog across her eyes so she wouldn't have to watch. Wouldn't have to see him like this and know there was nothing she could do but let it happen. She kept starting sentences, trying to push words out but everytime they were choked in her throat as Remus threw his head back against the counter and screamed.

She sat there for as long as she could, she went to sit by him but that only seemed to make it hurt more. Her heart thundered in her head and she stayed for hours. She stayed until the screams broke to a soft whimpering cry. Until she couldn't take it anymore. Grabbing a damp woolen blanket from the study, she wrapped it over him and walked out of the room.

All of this time she thought she'd known what love was.  
With one last glance before she closed the door, she realised she hadn't even been close. 

--

_"Hey, Moony, can I tell you secret?" Sirius whispered, a huge smile flattened his eyes to dark slits and Remus couldn't help but to smile back. His arms fell around Sirius's shoulders, wrapped up in too-white sheets and he nodded._

"What's your secret, Padfoot?" he mumbled into his neck. Wet breath hitting old kisses against new scars. A puddle of dark hair fell over his face and he nudged Sirius's shoulder slightly, laughing, letting it fall against the pillow between them.

"It's a big secret, so you can't tell anyone," Sirius mumbled back, taking Remus's hand in his and moving them both up to rest over his chest before he kissed the knuckles, "Can you promise you won't tell anyone?"

Remus's eyes flickered open and he moved to press up against Sirius tightly.

"I promise," he said, and the way Remus looked at him, Sirius knew he wouldn't breathe a word. Their lips shook gently as they met somewhere in the middle under the clammy gaze of the morning sun through the gap in the curtains.

Siirus pulled back first and nodded, tracing patters in the corners of Remus's eyes.

"Are you going to tell me?" Remus asked, eventually, and they both laughed. 

"The secret is," Sirius whispered, forehead pressed against forehead, dark hair and dark hands, "That I love you." 

"Mine is that I love you too." Remus let out in a breathy echo.

And they both smiled. 


End file.
